Booking flights with Expedia - missed connection

[Ma1co1m]

I have tried looking through their Terms and Conditions but, as expected, if my answer is there it's impossible to find...

My daughter is wanting to book return tickets to New Zealand. All of the possible flights involve 2 changes and 2 or 3 airlines. I know that if I book a long distance flight with a single airline then any missed connection due to a delay has to be taken care of by the airline. But what I don't know is whether any booking through Expedia ( or the companies that Skyscanner etc direct you to ) would be a Single Ticket so that missed connections would be taken care of by one or other of the airlines or whether they are booked as 2 or 3 individual flights, in which case you'd be on your own.

Does anyone have any experience of using Expedia to book long distance or ( even better ) experience of using them and missing a connection.

Thanks
ma1co1m

[Newroad]

Hi Ma1co1m.

My (educated) guess is that if the flights were booked as part of the same transaction, they would be ATOL protected via Expedia.

You would have no cover for, say, accommodation bought separately in New Zealand.

This link may help a bit: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/holiday-rights/

Regards, Newroad

[Lootman]

In general what is important is whether it is a single itinerary or more than one. If it is all under the same record locator (the 6 character code given to each flight booking) then the relevant airlines should rebook you if you miss a connection through no fault of your own.

That said bookings made through third parties like Expedia can be more difficult to change than bookings made directly with the airlines. And in my experience something like Expedia is not usually cheaper than booking directly so there is no real reason to do it.

Are the airlines involved part of the same alliance? (There are three major alliances and most major non-budget airlines belong to one of them). That would increase my confidence in having problems taken care of during the travel.

Personally I always book directly with the airline to minimise the risk of potential problems en route. You don't want to be trying to ring the Expedia helpline in the middle of the night from Bangkok because the airline desk won't help you.

[Ma1co1m]

Thank you for both replies.
Since I posted the query I have learned a few things:

- With Expedia the options seem to all have "Operated by" in the title so, for example "Lufthansa operated by Singapore Airlines" which I would take as meaning that Lufthansa would be the one she'd actually be booked with but some legs would be operated by Singapore Air. So far so hopeful.
- However, when you look at their flights the headline price is a lot lower than the final price. In fact, as Lootman said, it's pretty much the same as Singapore Air's own price
- Skyscanner redirects you to other sites which show cheaper prices but they have many horrendous comments from customers and I suspect ( although I don't actually know, but a number of them say "Part operated by..." ) that she would actually be buying several flights rather than one end-to-end.

still looking....
ma1co1m

[BullDog]

Thank you for both replies.
Since I posted the query I have learned a few things:

- With Expedia the options seem to all have "Operated by" in the title so, for example "Lufthansa operated by Singapore Airlines" which I would take as meaning that Lufthansa would be the one she'd actually be booked with but some legs would be operated by Singapore Air. So far so hopeful.
- However, when you look at their flights the headline price is a lot lower than the final price. In fact, as Lootman said, it's pretty much the same as Singapore Air's own price
- Skyscanner redirects you to other sites which show cheaper prices but they have many horrendous comments from customers and I suspect ( although I don't actually know, but a number of them say "Part operated by..." ) that she would actually be buying several flights rather than one end-to-end.

still looking....
ma1co1m

You're describing code share flights there. It's very common indeed and those airlines are Star Alliance carriers. It is extremely common to have a Lufthansa ticket and you travel on a Singapore Airlines aircraft. And vice versa. There's no issue if the Lufthansa ticket is cheaper than the Singapore Airlines ticket for the exact same flight. I would definitely follow Lootman who says avoid booking with on line travel agents as far as possible. I lost several thousand dollars when covid hit and a large on line travel agent went belly up. The airline didn't want to know anything about it.

[Lootman]

With Expedia the options seem to all have "Operated by" in the title so, for example "Lufthansa operated by Singapore Airlines" which I would take as meaning that Lufthansa would be the one she'd actually be booked with but some legs would be operated by Singapore Air.

Airlines have arrangements with other airlines, called code shares. So for example if you fly to the US on British Air you will notice that there are 4 different flight numbers. These correspond to the four members of the OneWorld airline alliance that operate trans-Atlantic flights: British, American, Iberia and FinnAir.

Where "operated as" merely means a code share arrangement then you will be fine. For example I recently flew from London to Los Angeles. I booked through American and the flights were operated by FinnAir and yet I got credit in BA miles (Avios). No problem at all.

"Operated by" can also mean the flight is operated by a subsidiary of the airline. This often happens for shorter flights that are flown by smaller aircraft e.g. turboprops.

However if the "operated by" is not a code share, and particularly if the two airlines are not in an alliance like OW or Star, then I'd be more concerned. There is room for a lot of finger-pointing if something goes wrong.